Wednesday, April 30, 2014

There is nothing to be said due to most of it being set aside for later where it could do the least forensic study that had to go right there otherwise it was going to be about not getting sent a note a recognition for the birds hammered with an x-ray machine and all because they had to stay out till all hours all hours and all because they left without telling anyone without notifying the appropriate parties parties where they were going or maybe they did think one of them answered a few questions on the subject or maybe they just decided to go around the topic in circles and never land on anything specific fancy doing that inside here behind where this finger is rubbing this brow or maybe not directly behind there but it is difficult to stop the spinning and roll the eyes back the other way you know in the direction of her impatience no that's not it never was had a lot to do with being fed up but there is an infuriated state hung on the rods of lightning in the microwave where the aluminum foil and the light bulb copulate within the canopy bed of dripping electric seed and eggs. Brow-beating something runny though the beard was certainly dry and crusty runny things they stop running brow-beaten by someone bloody even though uneven as a matter of fact as a matter of crushed spirit the last tooth is dead long live the broken front windows of the downcast.Bowels press togetherBoth sides remindersOf what is betweenDisappointment and hopelessnessCracks in the devastationLeak deceptive promiseand recessive lingering onrotted orange of a mandropped hands smeared mouthlowered eyes crappy fastingtender mudflap of a wish come falseand/or wheezing turned to alley scratchesand/or a small part of a dead bug's lifeyou and I have just a very small partof a dead bug's routinesprinkling its wings over more slices of lifeand/orand/or what?How dare you quote me without permission.And that about says it all.Back to where was I?An expression I am not fond of.I know.You're not going to say it again? Just to tear into my nerves?I'll save it for a more inopportune occasion.And you shall speak as one with an empty autograph book up his ass.Her ass.Her ass.His ass.Make up your mind.Whose mind?Bring me some goat bedding.I wouldn't want the bedding. I would prefer the milk.I used to only drink chocolate milk.They should make a documentary about you.Who is they?Then the project will never get off the ground now will it?My whole life has been a result of funding source issues.They were red stairs that ascended to the next floor.They descended as well stairs do that.Fine they descended as well. They were red stairs that ascended and descended to the next floor.The next story.The next story.And next door.And next door.Wait a moment. What are we talking about?A refrigerator.How did we get to a refrigerator?How did they? How did they? How? Know how they did it they did it with the know how know how they did it before it hardened before the concrete hardened they divided it up with lines and how they did it know how they did it with the know how cemented the arrangement where dirty footprints travel alone seeing double until coming to one's senses to have the know how divided it up with lines. How did they? How did they? How? Know how they did it they did it with the know how know how they did it before it hardened before the concrete hardened they divided it up with lines and how they did it know how they did it with the know how cemented the arrangement where dirty footprints travel alone.How did we get to a refrigerator?I started thinking about a refrigerator.One you used to have?Didn't have any food. Even back then.Back when?When it was in the backyard of someone else's backyard. Even back then. There's no need to keep inserting that phrase.No need. Certainly not when no one lived there anymore. Wasn't even overgrown. Parts and aspects were just not there leaving an emptiness as if the world didn't want to repossess any of it. Walked over the barrenness and filled it in with the debris in my head. She laid down with her in the blackness and gently coaxed her to speak the first image that held its breath just under the surface of the dark pool and she refrained from shaking her shoulders by racking her brain to fill in her silence to draw the face without a mouth without breath just under the surface of the dark pool. No need.roll the eyes back the other way you know in the direction of her impatience no that's not it never was had a lot to do with being fed up but there is an infuriated state hung on the rods of lightning in the microwave where the aluminum foil and the light bulb copulate within the canopy bed of dripping electric seed and eggs. Brow-beating something runny though the beard was certainly dry and crusty runny things they stop running brow-beaten by someone bloody even though uneven as a matter of fact as a matter of crushed spirit the last tooth is dead long live the broken front windows of the downcast.- Max Stoltenberg

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

This this place for turning around backed into that was could have been how it happened to be how it could have been how it happened to be in this this place for turning around backed into that that place this this this this and that place here and there some with glasses here and there some without glasses lifting a hand to the forehead watch the nose not this nose that nose just watch don't stare ensure the eye contact lack of contact except for fun making fun had to add in a little not such a thing thing no matter what father what mother says lack of contact lack of eyes empty dark sockets leaning over the edge pupils jump out from under the ledges so white seeing red in these bloodshot infected visions of dry hills of garbage and sticky and crusty for rubbing hands stick to these bloodshot infected visions of dry hills of garbage stained homes missing persons found by a critical sky."Why do you keep doing that?""Have I not been clear with the foregoing?""You haven't been clear but that's besides the point or not even that close. I just want to know why you keep doing that?""You mean the circling the places to sit.""I was asking about the eye twitching.""Loose nerve-ending somewhere.""Ever considered going in with a tool to repair the damage?""The thought did cross my mind.""Any action ever accompany the thought?""Suffered too many actions accompanying thoughts an onslaught of chaperones, a pandemic of arranged marriages, a veritable plague.""The stuff of viral couplets.""It's on these rare occasions that I can concede being flat on my back ice and banana peels having sunk deeper into the septic cake of my brain being thrown off-kilter by another's rejection of the correct pronunciation of last names that one finds the Earth against the shoulder blades providing that vigorous patting for a metaphorical burping.""And the loose nerve-ending continues to spark away and misfire in that head of yours sans any surgical enucleation and rehabilitative stitch in time.""Mother checked me in shook out her fur luggage thought I could become one of the staff playing chess with the neighborly sociopath a colleague of their own not including the laconic customers.""Nothing even resembling an exploratory poking around?""There's been the reflective dig if that's what you're getting at. Keep running into an accumulation of tools that were left behind and are now in the way is the thing."Slapping the stomach knuckles cut on the bark of a tree toppled along intestines felled by hunger cracking the neck wrists punctured by the fangs of a staple remover imploding under the fishbowl of a lost head lost at the first sign second sign of too many stretches of nothing for arms opened to catch in the throat what sadness only an allergic reaction to saying things more slowly until the track melts in the imprisoned frame of a glare making the button in the center bleed slapping the stomach knuckles cut on the bark of a tree toppled along intestines felled by hunger.They giggled no they did not giggle they had advanced beyond that as they did not move from their section of the table and when he orbited to transect the plane of feedback that's when he went around again for more his curiosity bending him around the finger dialing a rotary phone dead who is it asking for her name pretending not to hear fluorescent lights over the theater where school where work where home downsized the role and supersized the spotlight as they looked on and they did giggle."Are you going to open it?""Open what?""Are you going to sit down and open it?""Sit down where?"He didn't know. He didn't know what he wanted or he thought he wanted to walk around the tables and see see if they wanted to to notice wanted to talk wanted to ask and what he what they wanted never quite matched. He didn't know."Are you going to open it?""You got me something?""What are you asking?""What am I asking?""Looking for something?""No not anymore.""You're still looking.""No you you've killed it.""I've stirred it.""No you're looking for it. Ripples in my ignorance of you but there is no more room between the waves to be moved the waters have been polluted by your branches dragging them along the bottom the very bottom of me no ripples in my ignorance of you you the ultimate drag.""I do look for it still. Yes I do. Not the other shoe not the watch or the clock or the dead batteries not the other hand not the other face just the other half of this hand.""I never I never.""That's right you never a lot of things.""Where? When?""Where? Where did they go off to? Is that what you're asking?""You're asking me about my asking again?""You want to know about oh let me guess the meat grinder the mulcher the voracious mouth of some machine all that keeps growing back it's the only part that does. You never really looked or really noticed how the other half wanting the other half to suddenly thrust back out across a wooden table once the meat is gone it is gone and the bloody grass fading with weeds surges over what has been severed. He didn't know.""Who didn't know?""The little boy. Wasn't that little anymore making his rounds in the rings of fire getting burned.""What about her?""What about her?""They kept holding up their magnifying glass over him trying to brand him with her name.""Her name?""Yes, what was it?""I thought you were going to tell me.""Do you prefer they be two disembodied voices over the desert floor?" "It was after getting out of bed and wandering down the hallway in the dark of night she tried to guess how far through the room she had gone and if her hands had come to rest on the table where the puzzle was that she had spent all that time and originally one piece was missing and in all her searching she had recently discovered there were now two pieces that were missing.""I think I know who you're talking about.""She had a knack for puzzles.""No the one who's face was one of the missing pieces.""I thought that was the top right corner of a guy's head who is now buried at sea and the bottom of some rusted railing behind him.""I heard they got tired of trying to find the sea and dumped him a hole full of bodies in the desert.""That's right.""Maybe it was the other missing piece that was her face.""Maybe. Who's face?""She's supposed to know this very old woman with some mutation she had and one of the freckled catalogers was trying to make the very old woman look at the cover of this book she pulled out of a box full of appliances.""Freckled catalogers?""One of them they sequestered in this back room cataloging the genetic code of the mutation with 8 or 9 others she had freckles with these blue eyes.""What did she wear?""Maybe that was the other piece that was missing.""8 or 9 others?""The box was full of appliances mostly blenders and it was labeled coffee mugs and she pulled out a book that she tried to get the very old woman's attention to examine the cover because she wanted to see her reaction to when she blew the dust off and how it made the scene less interesting when the dust had supplied some background to the outline of a figure some wasteland that could be simply blown away and leave a figure whose edges bored all the way through to the back of the book."He didn't know. He didn't know what he wanted or he thought he wanted to walk around the tables and see see if they wanted to to notice wanted to talk wanted to ask and what he what they wanted never quite matched. He didn't know.- Max Stoltenberg

Saturday, April 19, 2014

The wireless cannibals are on the loose stretching logic to rocky propositions and interminable gyrations dividing in half the distance to death's door hacking life expectancies into fleshy cubes to pile up in the back of the bus roofless in the sand a canopy of sunglasses and underwear look upon them or up at them and tell yourselves or each other or only yourself because you are alone have been alone except for all those moments of humiliation the only virtue upheld by those who like to hold them down to the ground where the smell of tires and spit never seem to put out the fire of their cruel turns of phrase after most things are stripped away leaving only a self-awareness that only comes online after all those nights at the laptop with a deflated head in your hands in your lap with pants around ankles only after the pain that echoes in your head swelling with what has been thrown at it heady heavy stuff leaking from the muddy bunny's ears.This is the episode where the lump and the rind try to rid themselves of all that misunderstanding not most of it this time but all of it and this will include all the things that will come to mind during their project not most of it this time but all of it and this will include all the things that will come to mind during after they think they are done and will have to take it up again and probably give it another name or label and dig their nails into the stuff that sticks and scratch at what remains the corner of a name what is that but a price tag of wasted time their favorite music was always too soft all the leaning into the commitment with words and gestures that could never convince anyone as they stacked chairs not even most of them as they picked at the snacks and left and talked so loud as they disappeared their fading voices still drowning out their favorite music that was always too soft all the leaning all the falling over and the coming to mind after they think they are done and will have to take it up again and probably give it another name or label and dig their nails into the stuff heady heavy stuff muddy fake fur a price tag of wasted time."How much is it?""It doesn't much matter now.""Why not?""Look around you.""That's not easy for me remember?""I forgot about your neck.""You did.""What was it you walked into again?""I'm not going over it again with you. I asked you a question.""And I told you it doesn't much matter now.""And it was just someone who mistook me for someone else anyway and that will be the extent of it. And I wasn't asking about a number or a numerical value.""The answer still is I'm not wait do you hear that?""It's your head doing the thing.""No this is more like a more steady gradual further and steadily further below down a shaft.""This is the shaft with the deep dark burnt orange voices slipping away down but slowly enough for excerpts of broken sentiment punctured by regret and complaint.""Two there are only two voices. That's essential. How did you know that?""You told me.""When you were in days recent and back way back the same pathetic whine.""I could go for a glass.""You could. You've gone for a long stretch after losing your sandals step onto an early morning dusting of broken crystal casserole dish.""Burned my hand on a crystal casserole dish once.""I heard your department is not well thought of.""I heard you're a douche-bag piece of shit motherfucking asshole.""Hit the rewind button on that. What was I thinking?""You were thinking you should hit the fucking rewind button!""Yes yes I did and now...""Now?""Now we're back here where we don't even have dead end departments or general ballparks.""There once was this office and a woman who had recently been hired there and after the tour of the rooms she was shown to her cubicle. She was putting up a picture of a charnel house on her corkboard and suddenly the wall between her cubicle and the next fell with a thud and a grunt that sounded like someone saying who molested the hydraulics? She stepped into the next cubicle tried to step into the next cubicle carefully tripping over the fallen partition resulting in some additional expressions of pain that sounded like someone saying what in the name of all that is rancid threw itself down the throat of a fool to be tormented in the stomach of disgust with an existence of anxious conformism and blighted resentment? The woman began to grip the partition in order to lift it up. The wall lifted up more easily than she expected. There was an explanation underneath and it was Employee ID# HCH-051025-9 and it sounded like someone saying who determined that someone else should get all the credit? The wall had risen up enough now to put a face to the badge. She helped move him to safety. Don't touch me, he said waving his arms to deflect her attempts. He slid his ass along the floor to push himself further away from the partition as he told himself it was her he was distancing himself from. I was just trying to help, she said. Just trying to help destroy my cubicle that's all, he said. I haven't finished yet, she said as he felt his back against the opposite partition and very little room left to maneuver. What are you going to do? he asked nervously. I've wanted to tell you about my trip to the dentist, she said. I was hoping you wouldn't bring that up, he said as he added yet another facial tic to his already comprehensive repertoire of tics.words and gestures that could never convince anyone as they stacked chairs not even most of them as they picked at the snacks and left and talked so loud as they disappeared their fading voices still drowning out their favorite music that was always too soft all the leaning all the falling over and the coming to mind after they think they are done and will have to take it up again and probably give it another name or label and dig their nails into the stuff heady heavy stuff muddy fake fur a price tag of wasted time.They had me in the chair.still drowning out their favorite music that was always too soft all the leaning all the falling over and the coming to mind after they think they are done and will have to take it up again.One of them who leaned over me was making those sounds of hunger in their gut.and that's what madeand that's what madethem a little bit more recognizable with their dark maskssilhouettes above and belowdigging at me sucking up the messand that's what madeand that's what madethem a little bit more thanfamiliar with their frozen facesattached to the tagsabove and belowdigging at me sucking up the messThey had me in a chair, she said. Shit happens, he said. One of them who leaned over me was making the sounds of hunger in their gut, she said, and I think it was the one whose gut was churning told the other about how satisfied he was satisfied with a meeting the night before a meeting of the youth of the youth in the town that was not as dead as others had complained and he had the proof the proof of all their youthful activities their youthful activities of tearing down and cleaning up tearing down and cleaning up that was preparing them for the next day's work and the work that would follow that and within... The work within? he asked. No, she said, within a month most of the youth except for maybe 3 or 4 were killed in a bus accident. What's the matter? she asked noticing him squirming. I'm adjusting so my back won't knock this partition down as well, he said. Don't bother, she said, that's the last partition in this room and it's up against the wall.""Two there are only two voices. That's essential. How did you know that?""You told me.""Yes I tell you and I tell you, but how do we really know there are only two voices?""When we think of it.""And how do we think of it?""I see them as lights lights that circle inside my head and they pop in and out they are there and then they are not.""And where do we get that there are only two voices in all that?""When the lights most of the lights have gone out and there is death's sleeve lingering over the last switch to extinguish it all there are only two voices a you and a me whispering in the dark until the inferno of the next day's dawn.""I've heard it said that when it goes downhill enough it can only go up from there.""It levels out more like from all the smoothing over. Fuck the blinking lights and all that shit. There are only two voices because all the others bled out from their latest fad diet of platitudes.""We haven't done much better with nothing to find in this desert either. At least they tried to find a new angle. That's what they always said find a new angle.""We picked this desert. Also said that didn't they? Just what I enrolled in a different future right? What the specialist ordered change course to follow a new angle. Turned out to be another pressure angle for the gears to get a tighter grip on the skin dried out skin dried out tearing skin.""Everything was useless then. We'll stop referencing them from now on because when you think about it it kind of crowds up the whole only two voices thing.""There will only be two voices again when we stop speaking about them.""And thinking.""When we learn to stop speaking and thinking there will only be two voices a you and a me again."- Max Stoltenberg

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Up up yours up mine it's not quite done filling back up when will the toilet stop running the pipes are rushing to get rid of the brooding that despises its accompaniment its shushing its permanent marker of conversation marring the board of white noise no settings for the volume the sky is locked on grey up up yours up mine it's not quite done filling back up when will the toilet stop running the pipes are rushing to get rid of the brooding that despises its accompaniment its shushing its permanent marker of conversation marring the board of white noise no settings for the volume the sky is locked on grey."It used to be," said Decrepit."What used to be?" asked Fallow."Well, you name it.""Just spin the wheel, huh?""My head.""Is spinning.""I wasn't going to say that. Let me finish it.""Sorry. I should have let you complete your sentence.""Not that. Let me finish it and we'll drop to our deaths.""Why do you want to do that?""You mean what's my reasoning? I want to see what it's like to make something fail from the top.""We're halfway to the bottom. Besides the scaffolding is stuck unless you want to try it again.""You're right. It's meaningless. Plus I refuse to do anything with my hands anymore.""You won't get very far in your attempts to off yourself.""Maybe I'll just climb over the railing and jump.""It wouldn't involve me.""I can't tell if you're relieved or disappointed.""I can't decide."We might be back and we might we just might listen to the are they still calling them voices on the other side of the wall is that what they are still calling them they they are still called those things we call we might be we had to go ahead and be and that was the first mistake be back for a chance at listening to sides and the headphones have gone missing squared off with what has been pulling for it dragging them away through the dog door of vulnerable and excruciating encounters with memories that's what the Sun does what it's been doing since it started its spitfire drooling on the bathroom floor where the toilet is cracking up from the absurdity of what was used to keep it together the glue of a messy affair can't erase those images that resurface just at the back of your nose in the front of your mind can't get over it when you're knee-deep in it heart of glass in a glass house try to wipe and see through it streaks left behind rubs everyone the wrong way since I could walk since the Sun started its spitfire drooling on the bathroom floor a vomitorium of heat to reignite in the skin and muscles forgotten humiliation for another performance yet an additional day-room to stumble into."A man once went back to his junior high classroom," said Decrepit."We didn't call it junior high," said Fallow."He sat at the desk that used to be his.""We called it something else.""He tried to see if the poem he wrote directly on the desk was still there.""I can't remember what we called it, but it wasn't junior high.""You just said the only word he found from his poem.""Can't?""No, but.""How many t's survived?""Just one.""So he was writing about what an ass he was and only one t survived?""No, the conjunction you ass-hat notwithstanding the overly sufficient evidence you can't help but provide more reasons why men are the toxic offspring that spread despite the menstrual lakes of extinguishing stupidity.""Inter something is what we called it.""Intermediate school probably. I've heard it called that.""No, it wasn't that. I just can't remember.""Never mind. I'll climb over the rail and jump.""It wouldn't involve me.""I still can't tell if you're relieved or disappointed.""I still can't decide."Change the channelto a different storychange the diaperto the same old wayof disposing of our wastecouldn't put a finger on itand the lid came offslowly slowlyand we became the moonexcept we reflected no lightdeader than a gray oceanof bombardment with meaningless missions- Max Stoltenberg